Wood Alebrije Cat Sculpture in Green from Mexico, "Stretching Cat in Green"

A cat stretches with tail held high in this delightful alebrije sculpture from Mexico. Talented artisan Silvia Julian hand-paints detailed alebrije motifs onto the green cat.

Alebrijes are a fairly recent Mexican art form, attributed to Pedro Linares. Unconscious due to illness in 1936, he was presumed near death and yet his dreams were extremely vivid. He tells of a place where all was peaceful and quiet until all of a sudden there appeared a lion with an eagle's head, a rooster with bull's horns and a donkey with butterfly wings. They kept screeching "alebrije, alebrije!" and Ricardo began running away. He encountered a man who told him it was not yet his time to be there are and he should continue running towards the exit. In this dream Pedro climbed out of a window and regained consciousness. He made paper replicas of these creatures to show everyone, and soon others began to craft "monster-like" creatures in bright colours.